Presenter(s): Lizzy Elkins − International Studies, Women’s And Gender Studies
Oral Session 3C
Research Area: Gender/Sexuality studies
This paper seeks to investigate an emerging musical movement of rap and pop artists who actively subvert structures of the gender binary and heteronormativity through their music. The main artists considered in this research are Frank Ocean, a pop/rap/R&B artist who ascended to his peak fame in the past decade, and Tyler, the Creator, a rap artist who has also claimed fame relatively recently. Artists like Ocean and Tyler make intentional disclosures from heteronormativity and the gender binary, combat concepts such as ‘toxic masculinity’, and hint through differing levels of ambiguity the possibilities for normalization and destigmatization of straying from the gender binary in more ways than one: through lyrics, metaphysical expressions, physical embodiments of gender, expression of fluid/non-heteronormative sexualities, and disregard for labels in their sexual and gendered identities. In the following research, I discuss the history and context around music as an agent for social change and address the privileging of the black heterosexual cisgender man as the central voice to pop/rap/R&B. This project will draw on Beauvoirian philosophy regarding gender as well as contemporary sources of media like Genius, record sale statistics, and album lyrics. By illustrating and evaluating how these artists subvert traditional concepts of gender and sexuality, I hope to also shine a light on how their music – which reaches millions of people who are not familiar with ideas outside of the gender binary – is a catalyst for social change and how it is significant in this current political moment.